July 6, 2011, 4:12 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- Nationals right fielder Jayson Werth is in a major funk these days, but in spite of his struggles, he said he has no regrets about the seven-year commitment he made to the club in December.

Werth is hitting .221 with 30 RBIs in 83 games, and his lack of production already has created one bizarre plot twist this season.

During a May trip to Philadelphia, where he played previously, Werth received two standing ovations from the Citizens Bank Park crowd. In Washington, he's become the target of frequent and more pronounced booing in recent weeks from fans who expected a lot more in return for the Nationals' $126 million investment.

Contrary to some speculation in baseball circles, Werth is not suffering from a case of signer's remorse.

"I definitely want to (dispel) the idea that I'm not happy,'' Werth told ESPN.com. "Other than my offensive production -- which I'm OK with because I know it's going to turn around -- I'm happy with my decision.

"I definitely miss my teammates in Philly and I miss playing there and all that. But I've turned the page and I feel good about my decision. I see the future of this organization and where it's going, and I'm really satisfied and I really like it here. When I'm in my seventh year, I think I'll look back and go, 'That was a really good career move.' "

Werth is hitting only .161 (18 for 112) since the start of June, and he's homerless in 69 at-bats going back to a solo shot off the St. Louis Cardinals' Kyle Lohse on June 16.

The Nationals are a game over .500 at 44-43, even though Werth ranks fifth among the team's regular position players with a .703 OPS. Third baseman Ryan Zimmerman, who missed two months with an abdominal injury, is right behind Werth at .697.

Werth landed in the middle of a celebration Monday when he stole third base and scored on a wild pitch in the 10th inning to lead Washington to a 5-4 victory over the Chicago Cubs. But the booing resumed in earnest Tuesday when he struck out twice, grounded into a double play and left six runners on base in a 3-2 win over Chicago.

After the game, Nationals manager Davey Johnson told reporters that he believes Werth has "bottomed out" and is destined to turn things around soon.

"Early in the year, I think he was playing mentor to the younger guys a little more than he needed," Johnson said. "But he's a heck of a ballplayer. I know he's going to start doing the things he's capable of.

"He's not really worried as far as I can see, and I've had a lot of conversations with him. When he comes out, he's going to come out big."

ESPN

Published: July 5

Jayson Werth stood on second base late Monday afternoon, unaffected by what had preceded this crucial moment. Fans at Nationals Park had booed Werth as he peeled off batting gloves following a two-out, bases-loaded strikeout three innings earlier. He had been drilled by a fastball in the wrist the day before. He had hit .160 over the past month.

Werth cared about none of that. He studied the relief pitcher fresh into the game and surveyed the situation, one that gave him a chance to prove his value to the Washington Nationals even amid mighty offensive struggles: one out, tie score, extra innings. “I just felt like, it’s time to make something happen,” Werth said later. “It felt right.”

Within five pitches, Werth had stolen third base and bolted home on a wild pitch, completing a dash around the bases that sealed the Nationals’ latest delirious victory, 5-4 over the Chicago Cubs in 10 innings. Before 32,937, the Nationals’ fourth walk-off win in eight home games sent them back to .500 and validated Werth’s assertion that he can help the Nationals even as he slumps.

None of the Nationals’ previous wins materialized quite like this one, which Manager Davey Johnson managed with a roster diminished by a spate of injuries. Two starting pitchers pinch-hit with the score tied after the eighth. (“That’s a first for me,” Johnson said.) Laynce Nix played first base for the first time since high school. They overcame a two-run deficit in the final five innings while getting only one hit that left the infield.

In the end, Werth won it with a rally he created mostly by himself, with an assist from Livan Hernandez’s pinch-hit sacrifice bunt. Stuck in a vicious slump that has slashed his batting average to .224 in the first season of a seven-year, $126 million contract, Werth has endured boos often this homestand. When he bolted home in the 10th, his teammates mobbed him and the crowd cheered.

“Cheer me, boo me, whatever,” Werth said afterward, leaning on a couch in the Nationals’ clubhouse. “I’m still going to go out there and play my game.”

Even before he came to the plate, Werth had contributed without halting his offensive rut. He drove in one run with a broken-bat single and another with a weak groundout. He ended a Cubs rally in the sixth by throwing out a runner at home plate, his fifth outfield assist this season. Werth insists he’ll snap his slump. Until he does, he believes he can help with other means.

“I don’t worry about him,” catcher Ivan Rodriguez said. “I know that he’s going to hit and he’s going to put up some numbers for us. But those things he’s doing in the field, stealing the base, throwing a guy out at home plate, you don’t have to go 4 for 4 every day to say you’re a great player.”

The game lurched into 10th partly because of Werth’s at-bat in the seventh. Nix, who also tripled in the sixth, had drawn a bases-loaded walk to tie the game before Werth struck out with the bases loaded.

When Werth led off in the 10th, with a chance to play hero, he didn’t change his approach. Facing Marcos Mateo, he drew a walk. “I’m not afraid to take a walk,” Werth said. “I’m looking for a pitch, something to drive. The most important thing is getting on base.”

At the start of the inning, Johnson had told Hernandez he might call on him to sacrifice bunt if Werth reached first. During Werth’s at-bat, Hernandez retreated to the batting cage down the tunnel from the Nationals’ dugout and practiced bunting.

After Werth walked, Johnson pulled catcher Wilson Ramos back from the on-deck circle and sent Hernandez to the plate. He deadened the first pitch Mateo threw and sent the ball toward the first base line, a “blueprint” bunt, Johnson said.

With Werth on second, Mateo felt pain in his elbow and had to leave the game. Cubs Manager Mike Quade summoned Carlos Marmol, one of the nastiest relievers in baseball, a right-hander whose pitches dart and dive like balloons losing air. He jogged in to face Ivan Rodriguez with scant notice, like a startled contestant on “The Price Is Right.”

In the batter’s box, Rodriguez noticed Werth creeping off the base, little by little, as Marmol neglected him. With one out, Werth considered the advantage of moving from second to third worth a considerable risk. He knew if Marmol raised his front leg and spun to pick him off, “I would be the goat,” Werth said. But he felt comfortable that a pitcher fresh into the game, who was used to pitching at the start of an inning, would not.

“I think he started running before [Marmol] threw the ball,” Rodriguez said.

Marmol threw a fastball down the middle. Rodriguez normally would have swung at it, but he knew Werth had made such a perfect jump. “You have to take a pitch,” he said. Rodriguez did, for a strike. Werth slid into third base without a throw from Cubs catcher Geovany Soto.

“There was no sign for that,” Johnson said. “It was just his read, and boom, he’s over there. That’s a winning attitude.”

Said Nix: “It surprised everybody I think, them and us. He’s always thinking. He’s always on his toes. He never stops playing the game. And that’s admirable.”

With Werth 90 feet away, the Cubs drew their infield in. Rodriguez worked Marmol to a 2-2 count. Marmol threw him a slider, meant to be off the outside portion of the plate, to tease Rodriguez into swinging. Instead, it landed in the left-handed batter’s box, skipped by Soto and rolled to the backstop. Rodriguez windmilled his right hand, waving Werth home. “I almost dislocated my arm,” Rodriguez said.

Werth scampered home, sprinting over the plate without any resistance. He raised his arms as the Nationals exploded out of the dugout and created another dogpile. The Nationals have gone 12-2 in their last 14 games decided by one run or in extra innings, and they have outscored opponents, 27-7, after the ninth inning.

They’ve won many of those games despite Werth’s struggles. Monday, even if he hasn’t broken his slump, they won because of him.

“You get hot, you get cold, you keep hustling, you keep playing the game hard,” Werth said. “Do it the right way. Helping your team win, I think that’s the most important thing.”

The Washington Post

( Read more...Collapse )

Posted at 12:40 PM ET, 08/12/2011

Sometime between 7:15 and 7:45 tonight, depending on how the first inning goes for the Nationals, Jayson Werth will stroll into the batter’s box at Citizens Bank Park, the spot where for four years he hit so much better than he’s hit this season. It’s his second trip back to Philadelphia. The first centered on the question of whether the fans would boo him or cheer him. Four months later, the question has changed and become more urgent: Will Werth ever hit that way again?

“I’m still very capable,” Werth said last week in Colorado. “I feel like I’ve got that in me. I can do that.”

You can slice and dice Werth’s disappointing first offensive season in Washington any way you want to realize how far he has drifted from his career norm. He’s hitting about 40 points below his career batting average, about 35 points below his career OBP and about 80 points below his career slugging percentage. That sounds bad.

Here’s another way to put it that surprised me, and that doesn’t sound so bad: If you could magically sprinkle less than one additional double into each week of Werth’s season, he would nearly close all those slash-line gaps.

Before we explain exactly what we’re getting at, let’s stop to make one point clear: This is not a Werth’s Season Isn’t As Bad As You Think post. He’s starting to pick it up, and I don’t think we can write off the next few seasons based on the first four months of this one, but it’s been disappointing so far, period, point blank.

What is the point? Well, the large gap between Werth’s career performance and his 2011 performance, through that one-double-a-week prism, says something interesting, to me, about the marathon grind of a baseball season and the importance of keeping track of statistics in regard to evaluating a hitter. This is not meant to be comprehensive, and we’re ignoring all kind of valuable advanced metrics and such. It’s just a different perspective.

If they didn’t record averages and keep of track stats, do you think you would notice the absence or presence of one extra double per week by one hitter? You could be awfully attentive, and still, would that really make a difference if you couldn’t count it all up? It’s hard to know for sure, but it seems to me that it would not, purely by watching games and no record, make the difference between a dominant player and one who is not quite league average.

Is this post starting to go off the rails? Hopefully it’s about to start making some sense. Okay, Werth has played 112 games this season. Here are Werth’s numbers last season through 112 games, and don’t forget he played home games in a rather extreme hitter’s park:

2010

471 plate appearances

119 for 395

38 doubles

1 triple

16 homers

63 walks

112 strikeouts

8 steals

.301/.395/.524

That’s a very good season. Werth hit for more power down the stretch, and he ended up finishing eighth in the National League MVP ballot.

Here are Werth’s stats this season through 112 games, and don’t forget he’s playing home games at less forgiving hitter’s park:

2011

486 plate appearances

94 for 415

22 doubles

1 triple

14 homers

59 walks

121 strikeouts

14 steals

.227/.331/.386

A lot of those numbers are more similar than I figured they would be. He has four fewer walks in 17 more plate appearances, which is a problem. But what stands out more is the difference in doubles. The assumption when Werth signed with the Nationals is that, out of Citizens Bank, he would hit fewer home runs and more doubles. Well, the homers, to this point, are almost the same and the doubles are way down.

Here we are: what if Werth could magically turn 16 outs in 16 doubles? It sounds like a massive difference, and it is. Think about it like this: There have been 19 weeks of the season so far. It’s not even one double a week. It makes an exceedingly large difference on paper:

2011 plus 16 doubles

486 plate appearances

110 for 415

38 doubles

1 triple

14 homers

121 strikeouts

14 steals

That slash line comes out to: .265/.364/.463

Werth’s career numbers to date: 265/.362/.468

Now, again, please don’t misinterpret the point. There’s a reason he’s hit fewer doubles. Werth is hitting the ball on the ground more than he ever has. Careful, studious observers of the game know that it’s harder to hit a double when the ball is on the ground than in the air. His season isn’t about luck. It’s about not hitting as well, to this point, as he has in the past.

So can Werth hit like he can in the past? He believes he will. The difference, across the entirety of a season, might not be quite as vast as it seems.

The Washington Post

Outfielder confident Nationals -- and his bat -- are on right path

09/19/11

WASHINGTON -- When October comes around, outfielder Jayson Werth will not be playing in the postseason for the first time since 2006, when he was a member of the Dodgers and missed the entire season due to injury.

For four consecutive seasons after that, Werth was an integral part of a Phillies team that won four division titles, two pennants and one World Series title.

This season, Werth is not a member of the Phillies, a team that exited the weekend four wins from setting a single-season club record and with a very good chance to win its second World Series championship in four years.

Before the season, Werth signed a seven-year, $127 million contract with the Nationals, a team that has a 72-79 record and finds itself in a third-place tie with the Mets.

One wonders if he regrets heading south to Washington. The answers is no. Werth believes the Nationals are on the rise. He points out that the team has played tough against teams over .500 this season, currently carrying a 26-32 record.

Werth also acknowledges that the Phillies will be the team to beat in the National League East for quite some time.

"I really feel things have changed [with the Nationals]," Werth said. "We made progress and have taken the steps. We have gone in the right direction, but we have a long way to go. We are a young talented team. We are maybe a piece of the puzzle here or there away from turning the corner. ... No regrets. No disappointment. I think everything can be looked at in a positive way.

"I'm happy for those guys in [Philadelphia]. They deserve it. They work hard, if not harder than anybody. They have a very professional veteran team. They know how to win. They have a manager that fits that team and city perfectly. They are at the pinnacle of their careers. Not only this year, they are going to be tough for years to come. The NL East championship goes through Philadelphia for the time being."

In order for them to pressure the Phillies next year, the Nationals need Werth to be more productive. Entering Tuesday's game against the Phillies, Werth has hit .230 with 19 home runs and 56 RBIs. That's actually decent, considering he was hitting just .215 at the All-Star break.

Manager Davey Johnson believes Werth took on too many roles during the first half, including trying to be a leader for young players. Johnson feels it didn't help that Ryan Zimmerman and Adam LaRoche were out for a lengthy period of time because of injuries.

"I think there are a lot of reasons," Johnson said. "I think [Werth] took a lot of responsibility for a young ballclub. Adam LaRoche was out; Ryan Zimmerman was out. He was basically the only veteran in the lineup.

"I think he had to wear too many hats and not worry about No. 1. I think he is getting over that. I think he is more comfortable, and the supporting cast is starting to perform better. So I think everything is getting more normal."

Werth respectfully disagrees with Johnson's assessment, saying he had a tough time finding his swing. It didn't help that his videos were sent to him late in Spring Training and -- not the fault of his new teammates, as he puts it -- he didn't have anybody on the team that knew when he was at his best in the batter's box. As a member of the Phillies, Werth always had at least two teammates who could help pinpoint problems with his swing.

"If you look at my season, I had three or four different stances because I wasn't comfortable," Werth said. "Comfort in the box was the biggest issue. I couldn't get comfortable. My swing wasn't good. I didn't have my videos from last year until almost April -- until the end of Spring Training. Spring Training wasn't sound. Things were a little off. I just kind of marked that up to the situation. I was trying to figure out how to deal with it.

"Since then, I have regained my composure, my style of play and my level of comfort, and played like the player I can be. I have a very unique swing, a very unique swing path. It's my own. There are not too many guys that swing like that."

For the first time since the 2006 offseason, Werth can work from scratch on his swing once the regular season is over. He hopes to again be the productive hitter he was with the Phillies.

"I'm actually looking forward to this winter," Werth said. "When you play in the postseason every year, not only do you miss a month of the offseason, you are playing another month. I will have so much time to prepare and get ready for next season."

MLB.com

August 23, 2011

All season, Jayson Werth has talked of being "close" to finding his swing, as though it were an animal whose scent he was tracking through the woods.

This season has been a series of adjustments and counter-adjustments at the plate for Werth, all delivering only sporadic results and all coming under the scrutiny that rightly goes with a seven-year, $126 million deal. At the end of August, though, Werth finally believes he's where he wants to be at the plate. The game he had on Monday night would suggest that's true.

Werth doubled to left in the second inning, stinging a slider from Joe Saunders. And in the fourth, with two men on base and creating the kind of situation where Werth has stumbled most of the year, he hit one of his most encouraging homers of the season. When Saunders threw him a fastball on the outer half of the plate, Werth drilled it to right field, hitting it definitively enough that he had time to stop and watch it leave the park. The three-run homer put the Nationals up 4-0, and wound up being the difference in their 4-1 win.

"My power's to right field when I'm right," Werth said. "I think that was evident tonight. I should do that more often. It's a great ballpark to hit in. That right-center gap is, I think, closer than it looks sometimes. I'll take advantage of that a little bit more, and just keep working the right way. We've still got a lot of baseball left."

When Werth would hit balls to right center in Citizens Bank Park - where the gaps are easy pickings for a line-drive hitter - he'd get home runs on shots that wouldn't leave many other ballparks in the majors. But he has done his best work when taking the ball the other way, hitting .303 on balls to right field. Though he's only hit two homers in that direction, he's hoping he'll hit more if his swing is finally locked in.

Asked again what he had been doing to change his swing, Werth declined to give much detail, going back to his usual answer that the process is too technical to explain well. He eventually offered that he'd been doing a few drills to keep his hands inside the ball, and those have finally put him in a spot where he feels comfortable at the plate.

"I can be locked in and not get any hits. Like (Sunday), I felt great at the plate, and didn't really have a lot to show for it," Werth said of his 1-for-5 day against the Phillies. "I got some pitches called. Roy Halladay's pretty nasty, but I saw him good."

And Monday, he finally did some damage against a left-handed pitcher, which has been a major source of frustration for him all season.

Werth is hitting .185 against lefties, after batting .303, .302 and .287 against them the last three seasons. He's been susceptible to pitches on the outer half of the plate, but on Monday, manager Davey Johnson said to him, "Oh, so you can hit lefties."

"I didn't really appreciate that," Werth joked. "It was a struggle, really, to find it. It's been a long time coming. I knew where it was. I just didn't really know how to get there. But finally I feel like I've gotten there, so hopefully we'll be alright."

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